Sunday, January 19, 2014

Faux Ribbon Embroidery class at CFCF

 I'll be teaching the Faux Ribbon Embroidery class at Cabin Fever Clay Fest next month (February 2014).

Will be making the heart and it can be a pen or pendant as you choose. This project uses only three colors of clay a tiny bit of white Poly-form's Pomegranate clay and translucent clay. Polyform will be supplying the clay for the class. Thank you Polyform!!

We will be covering a number of steps but not all 16 that are in the class. A short tutorial will be included with the class that includes photos of all 16 "Stitches". I will be demonstrating all the stitches during bake time in during our class on Wed. Feb. 19 8:00AM – 12:00PM.



This pendant uses similar stitches as the class project however it  uses more colors and scraps of Skinner blends. Also used in the project to the right were scraps of greens that were swirled and then cut into leaves and vines.

Also included in our class will be techniques for pressing iron on glass or crystal jewels into the design without damaging the surrounding soft clay.

Hope to see you there! For more information check out:



Penni Jo Couch
Creator designer of 

Friday, January 17, 2014

A peek at my CFCF bezels & cabochons class

My first assignment when I went to work at United Design Corp. in Noble Oklahoma was to update and add to the Itty Bitty Critters line (Tiny animals & birds).

Miniatures were very popular at that time and since I had been working as a miniaturist for seven years in my home studio it was a good fit for me.

 After retiring I continued to enjoy sculpting and designing small pieces for jewelry. It wasn't long before the idea of making molds for reproducing the parts to make jewelry came to me.

Then HEY!! i wonder if anyone else would want one of these? So we started out on EBay and were soon selling from our own Best Flexible Molds website.

Currently we have dealers in five countries, a national distributor and our little molds are marketed world wide. 

CFCF Retreat director Kathryn Jo Ottman asked me if I would teach a class this year on how to use molds to make bezels of polymer clay. See photo upper left (the 1" wide quarter is in the photo for scale). The cabochon was molded of scrap clay and baked. Next the setting, or bezel, was molded of a mixture of black and silver polymer clay and dusted with a mix of micro Pearl and silver Mica powder after molding.

In class students will learn how the bezel can then be manipulated to fit the cabochon or other shape. "Working with Cabochon & Settings Molds" (4-HOURS) Wed. Feb. 19 1:00PM – 5:00PM

I'd love to see you in class this at the Cabin Fever Clay Fest in February. You can read more about it here at this URL.
http://polymerclayfests.wordpress.com/cabin-fever-clay-fest-2014-class-and-registration-information/http://polymerclayfests.wordpress.com/cabin-fever-clay-fest-2014-class-and-registration-information/